Broken Promises

The oil and gas industry has been promoting Alaska’s North Slope as the gold standard for “clean” oil development, asserting that new technology has shrunk industry’s footprint and will make future development less harmful to the environment.

The facts tell a different story.

Broken Promises, a new Wilderness Society report, calls attention to the gaps between promise and reality, casting doubt on the assurances issued by Arctic drilling proponents.

Proponents of oil development in Alaska have been making promises, and breaking them, for decades. More than thirty years of industrial activity in Alaska have demonstrated that oil production is inherently a dirty business. Despite the industry’s best intentions to minimize impacts, environmental and social effects are accumulating and resulting in lasting harm to ecosystems and indigenous cultures.